


Anything

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Pandemics, Post-Apocalypse, Survival, Unrequited Love, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: When the world is at it's end, having someone at your side can mean everything.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Kim Seungmin
Comments: 28
Kudos: 61





	Anything

Seungmin was literally dragged out of his sleep. Torn from it. Snatched from it.

A cold, damp hand was gripped tight around his neck, cutting off his air. Shit. Shit! He was never safe. He was never safe! Before he even opened his eyes, he was fighting back. Resisting. He wasted precious seconds just untangling himself from the blanket he slept under. 

“Fuck off,” he wheezed out, but he figured he’d be better off saving his breath. Saving his air. Zombies couldn’t talk back anyways. 

Seungmin swung out an arm at his attacker and he felt the impact just below his wrist but it was dark in the tent and he had no real clue what part of his attacker he’d just struck. Did it matter, though? He swung again and again, whacking at his attacker’s body but their grip on his neck didn’t slack up. In fact it _tightened_. His lungs burned. His vision got white and hazy around the edges. Seungmin kicked and grunted and twisted around, trying to buy himself some space. Some air. 

He swung his fist and landed the hit. So hard it stung his own knuckles.

That just angered the thing. A low growl came from up above him and then a wide open mouth was swooping right towards his face.

It was dark but, somehow, Seungmin could still see the shiny whites of those fucking teeth. 

Seungmin pulled the sleeve of his sweater up over his left hand a split-second before those teeth clamped down tight across his fingers.

Shit shit shit shit. That was fucking close. As long as he kept those wretched teeth out of his flesh… As long as infected zombie spit didn’t make it into his veins… 

He was running out of air. Out of time. Out of strength. Everything in front of his eyes blurred as his mind started to blank. Genuine panic bloomed in him and the adrenaline surge in his blood made him dizzy. Seungmin thrashed his arm about but those teeth stayed firmly clamped around his hand, digging in like a dog. God. Even with his dirty sweater creating a barrier of wool between him and a one-way ticket to infection, if the zombie bit much harder than that, those teeth would still break skin. Seungmin raised a knee and felt it collide with the body on top of his. 

He heard an angry snarl and the grip around his neck loosened just enough for him to suck in one good breath. Seungmin flipped them over and pinned the zombie to the tent’s tarp floor with his body weight. 

The body writhed and wriggled below him and the dull aching throb in his left hand from the pressure of those teeth was beginning to make his fingers numb. Seungmin searched the dark of the tent with his free hand, knocking over empty cans of soup, smacking away his flashlight, until his fingers wrapped around the familiar wooden handle of his hatchet.

Aim for the neck, he reminded himself. Take the head clean off in one slice or the goddamn thing would keep coming at him.

Seungmin raised the hatchet above his head, ready to swing.

“Guys, guys!” The high-pitched screech came from the tent’s open flap. Early morning sunlight spilled in. Bright. Warm. Orange. “Can you fuckers lay off? I can hear you from the river. What if you call a group of the _things_ down on us?”

Seungmin narrowed his eyes. It was no zombie snarling and growling beneath him. It was his younger brother Jaehyuk. That didn’t stop either of them, though. Seungmin shoved his hand farther into Jaehyuk’s mouth, forcing the kid to tilt his head back and expose more of his throat. Seungmin raised his hatchet higher above his head. 

Just go clean through, he told himself.

Jisung crawled a little farther into the tent. “Stop it, motherfuckers. Why do you fucking do this every fucking morning?”

Seungmin stared at the place in Jaehyuk’s neck where the blade of the hatchet should go. From this angle, the cut would be smooth. Clean. The head would come right off.

Jaehyuk, his brother, still had his teeth driven deep into Seungmin’s left hand, still had his right hand clamped tight around Seungmin’s neck, fingers pinching his airway closed. Neither of them would give up.

Worried, Jisung called out, “You two are going to actually fucking kill each other one day.”

Jaehyuk heaved his body sideways. He nearly flipped them back over but Seungmin spread his legs wide to keep his balance, to keep him planted on top.

“Guys,” Jisung screamed.

At last, Jaehyuk pulled his teeth free of Seungmin’s fingers, loosened his grip on Seungmin’s neck.

Seungmin sucked in air and tossed the hatchet aside. He rolled off of his brother and relaxed onto his back on the floor. “We do it to keep our instincts sharp,” he explained, near-breathless. In the wilderness, you could never let your guard down. Even to sleep. “You should fucking practice more your goddamn self, Jisung.”

Jisung slumped his shoulders and relaxed. “I don’t have a brother to attack in his sleep.”

Seungmin jerked his thumb to his left. “You can borrow mine.”

Without hesitation, Jisung said, “He’d kill me.”

Jaehyuk laughed and licked his lips where the blood from his nose trickled. “Scaredy cat.” Though it wasn’t entirely clear if he was speaking to Jisung or to Seungmin or to perhaps even himself.

Seungmin sat up and searched the messy, unorganized tent with wide sweeps of his arms until he found his little tin first aid kit. He undid the lock, opened the latch and fished out one of his last cotton balls. He turned around, leaned over his brother and ungracefully plugged up the guy’s leaking, bloody nostril. Then, with almost uncharacteristic tenderness, he swiped a sweat-damp lock of hair out of Jaehyuk’s face. “How’d I do?”

“Thirty four seconds,” Jaehyuk said.

An improvement. Just two days ago, Seungmin had lost consciousness after twenty seconds. Jaehyuk punished him for it by dragging his body out to the very edge of camp, out by the fence, and covering him from head to toe in mud and dirt and probably animal shit. It took an hour of sitting in the river to get clean again and the water was _frigid_ this time of year.

“What the hell do you want, Jisung,” Seungmin asked when he realized the guy was still standing there. Watching them with something damn near close to jealousy.

Jisung stood up straight. “Pack your shit. We’re breaking camp. We leave at noon sharp. Chan’s orders.”

Seungmin checked his digital watch. It was built for the outdoors. Huge and chunky and durable and waterproof and, most importantly, solar-powered. “It’s Wednesday. Minho said we’d set out first thing Friday.”

“Hyunjin got the truck to start up.”

“How?” Seungmin asked, eyes wide. They had been having serious discussions about leaving the fucking thing behind. “With what parts?”

Jisung explained, “Changbin and Yongbok went out riding again yesterday evening. Late. Went west at the crossing. Yongbok said it was nearly an hour’s drive. A whole lot of nothing and then they came across an auto parts store in a suburb and smashed through the barricade. Took everything that was useful. Like six full bags.”

“Shit,” Seungmin groaned. He was more than a little upset. Today would have been his and Jaehyuk’s turn to go out riding and scouting. He loved zooming around on Minho’s big Harley. The two of them were awful at the task, though. Instead of tracking down resources, they usually went hunting for zombies. _Culling the herd_ , Jaehyuk called it, seconds before Seungmin let him loose. Seungmin would convince Minho to let them take the bike today anyway. He punched Jaehyuk in his side and ignored the pained scream he got in response. “Go get us breakfast. I’ll clean up.”

Jaehyuk rolled forward onto his feet and approached the tent flap.

Jisung physically cowered away from him, giving him a wide berth as he left.

Every now and then, Seungmin looked at Jisung and wondered what Chan saw in him. Jisung wasn’t all that physically strong like Minho or Chan or Changbin. He wasn’t good at cooking, like Yongbok, or at fixing up things, like Hyunjin. Jisung couldn’t shoot a gun or swing a hammer like Seungmin or Jaehyuk. He couldn’t patch up wounds and reset dislocated bones like Jeongin. Maybe Chan had a thing for Jisung? But that couldn’t be right because Chan had a thing for Changbin. They weren’t exactly quiet about it at night.

Seungmin decided not to worry about it. He wasn’t in charge. He had no say in which survivors they brought along with them or which they left behind. Just point him at some zombies to hack up into bits and he’d put up with nearly anything else.

“Move, will ya,” he snapped. “You’re blocking the door.”

Jisung obediently stepped sideways away from the tent flap.

Seungmin started gathering armfuls of empty cans and other trash and then hurled the garbage out the tent flap. Everything made noise as it went clattering across the stamped-flat grass and gravel. Seungmin repeated the action with another armful of trash.

Jisung poked his head out into the early morning air. Not to complain about Seungmin’s littering but to make sure Jaehyuk was far enough away that he wouldn’t overhear his shittalking. “I know he’s your brother but doesn’t he freak you the fuck out?”

Psssh. “He’s harmless.”

“Your brother is a goddamn lunatic, Min.”

Seungmin tossed another armful of trash out into the grass. “What makes you say that?”

“He’s not scared,” Jisung answered.

With all the trash gone, Seungmin shoved the remaining supplies and items into Jaehyuk’s duffel bag and then zipped it closed. He needed to remember to go to the river and refill all of their canteens. “Is not being scared a bad thing?”

Jisung checked outside the tent again. Everything was clear. At least for a few more seconds. He turned back to Seungmin. “Shouldn’t we all be scared? Out here? With those _things_ roaming the woods?”

Seungmin rolled his eyes. “You can say zombies, Jisung. You aren’t going to fucking hurt their feelings.”

Jisung visibly tensed. “They were people once.”

Seungmin nodded slowly. Sometimes he forgot that Jisung hung out with Jeongin all of the time. Jeongin had a few screws loose. There was no other explanation. He hated when Seungmin and Jaehyuk paraded around with the decapitated heads of their kills. Three years back, he fed a zombie he’d caught and tied up an entire bottle of antibiotics in hopes of turning them human again. All those pills gone. A fucking waste. Jeongin looked at the wasteland outside and was still somehow convinced that this bullshit would be over one day. That God would ‘save’ them. That the zombies would just _disappear_ and the cities would magically reopen and shit would go back to normal. That kind of thinking was what got them all in this mess to begin with, all those years ago. Politicians didn’t take the initial outbreak seriously. They invested no money in research. Thought a curfew that they didn’t even enforce would be enough. Zombies were always breaking out of their flimsy little quarantine zones and a lot of people, too stupid or too desperate to abide by the stay-at-home orders, got bitten in the streets daily. It stopped becoming a topic on the news after a month or so and because of that, people thought it was over. Went out on vacations. Got bit in the process. The infection spread like wildfire. Entire towns turned to zombies. The hordes charged across the landscape in a hellish mass of limbs and teeth, further spreading the infection.

All because the government wanted to reopen schools.

“Jaehyuk’s just having fun. It’s all a video game to him,” Seungmin said after a moment of thought. “He’s living his dream.”

“We aren’t playing some online survival game,” Jisung hissed. “This is real life.”

That rubbed Seungmin the wrong way. He glared up at Jisung. “And who do you think keeps your sorry ass safe?” Then, in a sharper voice, “And if you ever turn, who the hell else do you think is going to put you down?”

The tent flap opened. Jaehyuk came in, startling Jisung. “Last cup of sliced peaches,” the kid announced. “For you, bro.” He tossed the cup through the air at his big brother who caught it one-handed. “Changbin thought he could snatch it out of my hand. I punched him in the nose. You’re welcome.”

Jisung had heard that story before. Several times. “Did you take it from him first?”

Jaehyuk popped open his little can of shredded tuna. “Yes.” Brutal. Succinct. As always.

Jisung narrowed his eyes in Seungmin’s direction as if to try and send some sort of message.

Seungmin didn’t understand what Jisung was trying to tell him. The only person he was good at communicating with was his brother so he just peeled the plastic top off of the cup and started slurping down the gooey, supersweet syrup that kept the fruit fresh.

Then, like it hurt him to say it, Jisung asked, “Did you get me something too?”

Jaehyuk snorted back a laugh but he reached into the pocket of his torn denim jeans and held out a folded-up, half-empty bag of peanut M&Ms. He didn’t even blink when Jisung scowled up at him. “Yongbok was in charge of rations this morning. You know how he is, the stingy little bitch. It was either this, a Ziploc bag of potato chip crumbs or a paper plate with a dogshit pile of Nutella on top.” A moment of held breath. “Look, if you don’t want it, I’ll--”

With a sigh of defeat, Jisung took the bag of candy out of Jaehyuk’s extended hand, going out of his way to avoid skin contact. Jisung looked back over at Seungmin, clearly ready to leave. “We should talk later.”

“About what,” Seungmin asked honestly, his mouth full of peaches.

Jisung almost looked hurt but then he steeled his face into an emotionless mask. “Nevermind.” Then he backed out of the tent and walked away. 

Jaehyuk squatted down on the tent’s tarp floor, knee to knee with his brother, and shoved his fingers directly into the canned fish to scoop out a handful and shove it in his mouth. “Now that the creep’s gone…”

Seungmin almost laughed up his peaches. His nose burned with the sting of the syrup zipping up into his sinuses. 

“What?” Jaehyuk raised an eyebrow and Seungmin felt like he was looking into a mirror. They had the same rectangular face and thick eyebrows and flat, thin lips. Jaehyuk’s face was just a little rounder. Jaehyuk repeated, “What?”

Seungmin got a handle on his giggles. “Don’t call him a creep.”

“It’s the truth. I catch him staring at you from across the camp all of the time. Like a dog begging for table scraps.”

“He just thinks he’s in love with me.”

Now it was Jaehyuk’s turn to nearly cough up his mouth full of tan-colored, soupy meat. “You’re kidding. You’re kidding.” Then when Seungmin’s expression didn’t lighten. He choked out, “No! For real?” Then he lost that look of bug-eyed surprise and asked again, “For real?”

Seungmin sighed. “We kissed a few times and now he’s _emotionally attached_ to me.”

Jaehyuk’s expression hardened to steel. His laughter petered out and his eyes darkened. He slid backwards, away from Seungmin, as if he’d been burned. 

“Don’t worry,” Seungmin said quickly, laughing it off. “I’m never going to like him back.”

Slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae, joint by joint, Jaehyuk relaxed. “Good,” he said, and then he slid towards Seungmin and shoved his hand back into his canned tuna so he could eat more.

Seungmin slurped down the last of his peaches and tried his best to ignore the fact that, earlier, when Jaehyuk had slid away from him, he’d done so to grab Seungmin’s hatchet.

⛺

Perhaps Jeongin and Yongbok made too much noise washing everyone’s spare clothes in the river out back.

Perhaps Hyunjin cranking up the truck to make sure it still responded had been a little too loud.

Maybe Chan and Changbin going in and out and in and out of the squeaky fence gate was what caused it.

Regardless, there was enough of an audio stimuli to attract the attention of a lone zombie. It shambled down the hill across the street towards them. The ghoulish thing, single-mindedly driven by eternal hunger, nearly sent itself tumbling head over heels downhill as it ran towards the fence.

Oddly, Minho, who usually never saw the things coming, was the first to catch sight of it and his frantic radio calling was the only thing to alert the others before someone outside the fence got jumped and bit. Hyunjin, Chan and Changbin had slacked off, gotten complacent, and the three of them didn’t have a weapon between them so they had no choice but to climb up into the truck, kill the engine and lock the doors.

Jisung was tasked with running around the perimeter of the fence to make sure no other zombies were trying to slip through a gap in the chainlink.

Minho radioed Yongbok and Jeongin next, informing them of the situation. To be on the lookout in case some more came crashing through the trees. He said, if push came to shove, to just leave the wet clothes behind and protect themselves.

Seungmin and Jaehyuk? They were determined to finish their card game.

Jaehyuk slammed down one of the last cards in his hand. “Uno.”

“Oh, come on, that’s not fucking fair,” Seungmin whined. “Didn’t Hyunjin say this deck is missing like three cards?”

His brother snickered. “Sucks to be you.”

Seungmin put down his own card, knowing it was the end for him.

Minho walked up on them. “Aren’t you two going to do anything about this?” He pointed towards the zombie biting and clawing at the fence. The hideous thing snarled and snapped like a dog with rabies.

“No,” the Kim brothers said in perfect unison, barely giving the thing a glance. Then Jaehyuk threw down his last card and shouted “Uno out!” 

Seungmin threw his head back and groaned.

“Guys,” Minho said. 

“Can’t you take care of it,” Jaehyuk wondered. “Or do you only fight when Chan promises to put his pencil dick up your ass?”

Minho went red in the face. “You--” 

“Don’t yell,” Seungmin chided. “Might attract more visitors.”

Minho sputtered. Spit gathered on his chapped lips. He visibly stopped himself from saying what he truly wanted. He settled on, “guys, please.”

“There’s only one,” said Jaehyuk. “It’ll only take like five seconds and that won’t even be fun.”

Seungmin said, “Maybe you _should_ yell, Minho. Bring us a few more. Call us when there’s a proper herd.” And then when Minho didn’t move or say anything, he added, “Just grab a rock and bash its head in. Why are you watching us?”

Jaehyuk started to gather all of their cards and shuffle them back up so he could deal another round but Minho kicked out with his booted foot, hit Jaehyuk’s wrist and sent the playing cards fluttering across the ground. 

That was a bad idea.

Jaehyuk was halfway standing before Seungmin reached out and grabbed his wrist tight, held him back. 

The anger left Minho’s face, replaced by pale-white wide-eyed fright.

“What about the others, huh,” Jaehyuk asked, glaring at Minho.

Minho took a preemptive step back, removing himself from the swinging range of Jaehyuk’s free arm. His voice was paper thin when he responded, “Hyunjin, Changbin and Chan are two kilometers up the road and Yongbok and Jeongin are out by the river.”

In other words, Minho was trying to pass responsibility to someone else. As usual.

“Get Jisung to do it. We’re busy,” said Seungmin.

At last, Jaehyuk relaxed and plopped himself back down on the grass. He began gathering up the cards again.

“Fine.” Minho made a call on his radio and, a minute later, Jisung was at the gate, shaking like a leaf with a heavy metal pole in both of his hands.

Although Seungmin continued the game of Uno with his brother, he kept part of his attention on Jisung. 

The boy pulled open the big gate, which caused enough noise to get the zombie to unhinge its jaw, peel itself off of the fence and go charging at him with rather ridiculous speed. Jisung screamed wildly and swung the metal pole a full second too early and the zombie crashed into him, bowled him over and sent him tumbling to the gravel.

Minho panicked and screamed into the radio.

Seungmin rolled his eyes and threw down his hand of cards.

“Really,” Jaehyuk complained.

“He’s gonna get bit,” Seungmin reasoned. He stood up and calmly, casually crossed the lot towards the zombie.

Jisung had gotten up to his feet and had started running which was a shit thing to do. These zombies were like dogs. Chased anything that moved.

Seungmin stooped down, picked up Jisung’s discarded metal pole and watched as Jisung made an utter fool of himself screaming and running and halfway tripping over himself. Seungmin whistled, high and sharp, and the noise got Jisung’s attention. He swung around and started running back towards him.

This zombie was fucking fast. It reached out an ugly, greenish hand and grabbed the back of Jisung’s shirt with enough force to send him to the ground.

That’s when Seungmin lunged into action. He held the pole like a baseball bat, swung hard at the zombie’s jaw right before it pounced on Jisung. The impact vibrated up through the metal. The vibrations made Seungmin’s hands hurt. Made his whole arm shake. He reared back. Swung again. Harder. 

He watched in brutal satisfaction as half the zombie’s skull caved in. Eye gunk went everywhere. The nose fell off, revealing a deep, black pit in the center of its face. The jaw hung from the rest of the head by one lone tendril of rotted skin.

The thing fell over, almost completely on top of Jisung, and the poor boy was scared so shitless he passed out, eyes rolled to the back of his head.

The job was done.

He nearly squatted down to pick Jisung up off of the ground--maybe carry him back into one of the tents or something--but he could _feel_ Jaehyuk’s eyes on him. Watching. Waiting. More dangerous than any zombie.

Seungmin turned back around and was halfway down the lot trying to resume his card game when Minho shouted from across the way, “Don’t just _leave_ that thing there.”

Groaning, Seungmin spun back. Jisung was out cold. Half-covered by the goopy, dripping corpse. His mouth was half open, which was a problem because if any of the zombie mess got in there, he’d turn. 

Seungmin grabbed the zombie by the neck of its tattered clothes and dragged it across the grass, through the gate and out towards the road. He let go of it. Let the body ragdoll across the asphalt like any other kind of roadkill, then gave the head one last overhead swing with the pole for good measure. The head cracked open and deposited pink mush all over the paved road.

Ugh. Blunt weaponry was so inelegant. He preferred blades. Something sharp to just take the head off in one clean swing rather than all of this tiring smashing. He flung the bloody pole across the road and into the grass and then walked back to the fence just in time to overhear Minho speak into the radio, “No, you don’t have to come back. Seungmin got it.”

“I didn’t check to see if he was bitten,” Seungmin told Minho. “Call us if he turns.”

⛺

With everything all packed up, the tent and their sleeping gear stashed away, Seungmin hauled all of their bags and things across the cracked pavement. _Pack light_ , Chan always said, but he forgot just how much they all needed to carry. Food. Blankets. Utensils. Clothes. First aid kits. Weapons. Fuel for the truck and the bike. All around him, the others were finishing their preparations as well. 

Jisung was still trying to break down his tent. It looked like Jeongin was walking over to show him a bit of mercy.

Seungmin opened the big gate and stepped through it and his skin tingled as he knowingly left the only real protection they had out here.

The group had set up camp in the parking lot of some kind of old furniture-crafting shop or something. There was no food to scrounge up in any of the dusty rooms but Chan didn’t really care about what these buildings used to be. He only cared about the chain-link fences still being intact. They’d made camp in mausoleums before. Fitting.

Morale was a mixed bag.

The zombie scare had everyone speaking to each other in hushed tones but even if they smiled, it had still impacted everyone’s morning.

Hyunjin and Changbin and Chan were excited about getting on the road again. Changbin and Chan had refueled the truck and loaded the tractor trailer with new resources and supplies stolen from inside the crafting shop. Wood. Nails and screws. Glue. Paper. Copper wires. There was no telling what they’d need. Hyunjin and Minho had chained new defenses to the truck. Planks of wood hammered through with nails across the grille. Brand new stripes of packing tape across the windshields to minimize the glass shattering if it ever took a big hit.

The others, though, were a bit fed up with having to pack up everything ahead of schedule. Particularly Yongbok. He’d slipped off into the woods to hunt earlier that morning and had shot a deer for cooking. He’d planned his whole day around gutting and skinning the thing, slow-roasting the meat while making new protective gear from the hide but now he had to abandon the carcass in the woods since it would do nothing but rot and attract flies if they strapped it to the tractor trailer’s roof. (They had learned that lesson the hard way a few months back.)

Jisung had been out cold in the grass for nearly half an hour before anyone thought to check on him. Minho made him strip and checked his body for sneaky zombie bites. He had none. Thank god. 

Jeongin hadn’t even finished counting and reorganizing the last little bit of his medical supplies. They were running out, Seungmin had overheard Jeongin tell Chan. If they didn’t come across a pharmacy or health clinic in the next few days, they’d be up shit’s creek if anyone got sick or injured.

It was moments like these when Seungmin remembered that they were a team. That there were a whole bunch of other cogs spinning and spinning and that even if he spent all day decapitating zombies, he wouldn’t really _survive_ out here without the others.

Seungmin walked down the road towards the truck. It was just an empty stretch of double-lane highway, the trees thick enough to obscure an incoming zombie horde if you didn’t have your wits about you. The group would be heading in the direction of the town where Yongbok and Changbin found that auto parts store. There was a high chance they’d run into zombies milling about but as with all towns out here, there was also a high chance of finding food and supplies and fuel. Maybe even a chance of finding survivors.

What felt like a million years later, Seungmin came around a curve in the road and finally spotted the eighteen-wheeler.

Hyunjin had done something stupid like name her but Seungmin couldn’t remember what it was if he tried and it had been _years_.

Seungmin glanced up through the truck’s tinted windows to see that Hyunjin and Yongbok and a crooked-nosed Changbin were already sitting inside, ready to go. Seungmin reached the back of the truck. The door was still up, open. Packed tight with all of their strapped-down supplies. He hopped up onto the little ledge at the back and started to unburden himself of all the bags and boxes he was carrying.

He was certain they were trying to sneak up on him but Seungmin saw their shadow several seconds before they got up on him. “What are you looking at,” Seungmin asked. He pulled the strap of his backpack off of his shoulders and chucked the heavy thing into the back of the tractor trailer.

“Jaehyuk punched Changbin,” said Chan with a weary sigh. “Again.”

“I know. He told me.” Seungmin tossed another bag full of his clothes and fresh socks and other things into the trailer. He glanced down at Chan and then pointed a finger at his own face. “Right in the nose.”

Chan said, “We have to get along out here, Seungmin. We’re all we have.”

“I thought we got along just dandy?”

“We do…” Chan trailed off. 

Seungmin finished unloading his things and hopped down off the ledge. He turned around and looked at Chan, really taking in the man’s hardened expression. “Aren’t we friends?”

It tore Chan up on the inside to have to force a smile and say, “Yeah.”

He shook his utility belt to make sure it was still fastened securely around his narrow waist. To make sure he still had his hatchet, his guns, his rope, his ammo, his flashlight, all within arm’s reach. “But?” Seungmin prompted. 

“But… a lot of the physical injuries we’ve sustained this week haven’t even been because of the zombies. It’s because of--” He paused and looked around as if expecting Seungmin’s brother to appear at any moment. “--Jaehyuk.”

Seungmin folded his arms across his chest. Chan looked a bit of a mess. He looked tired. And his hair was still growing noticeably unevenly after he haphazardly hacked at the tangled, curly locks in frustration with a pair of scissors the other week. 

Chan continued, “Don’t you remember why we’re out here roaming the roads? We’re going to find a place to stay. I mean _really_ stay. We have to find a place with clean water and electricity. We’ll build a tall fence and grow crops and everything.”

“For fuck’s sake. You sound like Jeongin.”

“Is that so wrong,” Chan asked him. “We’re going to set up a community. Rescue other survivors. Find a way to live with these things.”

Seungmin didn’t get his point. “And?”

“And we can’t do that if everyone is afraid of you and your brother.”

Ahh. Why didn’t he just say that at the beginning and save them both all of this time? Seungmin asked, “should we leave, then?” And it was half genuine threat and half a polite ‘fuck off.’ When he was still alive, Seungmin’s father had taught the boys that on any job, in any team, they should do something so well that they become irreplaceable. That the threat of them leaving would make anyone move mountains and drain oceans to get them to stay. The boys had done exactly that. No one else on this team was good at laying flat zombies. No one else was as good at tracking their movements, predicting their migration paths, spotting them coming on the horizon. Even after all this time, Minho still panicked when he held a gun in his hands. Chan had an irrational fear of sharp objects. Couldn’t even eat with a fork. Jisung wasn’t strong enough to cut through a zombie’s neck in one swing. Jeongin said killing zombies went against his religion, that it was _murder_ , even though the bitches were already dead.

These guys wouldn’t last a literal day without Seungmin and Jaehyuk doing all of the dirty work.

Seungmin knew that.

Chan knew that. “No, you shouldn’t leave.”

Seungmin gave him a smile and then turned around to walk back down the road towards the furniture-making shop. He called out over his shoulder, “That’s what the fuck I thought, Chan.”

⛺

Minho had said no to Seungmin taking the motorcycle. Then Jaehyuk joined the conversation, all smiles, hand on Minho’s shoulder, and Minho quickly changed his answer and tossed the keys at Seungmin’s chest and quite literally ran away.

“We’re going to ride ahead,” Seungmin said. “Scout the roads. Draw the attention of any hoards.”

Jisung’s bottom lip trembled. “But that’s Minho’s job.”

“It’s our job now,” said Jaehyuk with a grin. 

Jisung audibly swallowed his mouth full of spit.

Seungmin said, “Yongbok already told us the way. And if we get separated, there’s the radio.” He pointed to the bright yellow communication radio strapped to his chest.

Jisung couldn’t let the matter drop. “Yeah, but you usually ride in the truck cab with us.”

_With me_ , was his unsaid plea.

“Gotta change things up every now and then,” Jaehyuk said. He had their dad’s compound bow gripped tight in his hand, ready to put an arrow through the head of anything that ran at them. He casually played around with it, pulling back on the drawstring and then letting it go to watch the mechanism tense and release, tense and release.

“Step off, Jisung,” said Seungmin sternly. “You’re acting like we can’t take care of ourselves. Now get away from the bike so we can leave.”

Jisung did get away from the bike. But he also stepped across the cracked, weed-choked pavement to grab Seungmin’s wrist.

There was an electric crackle in the skin contact and it shocked Seungmin into statue-still silence.

Jaehyuk pulled the compound bow’s drawstring back, aimed the weapon at the dead center of Jisung’s head and released the drawstring with a whispered, almost cartoonish, “Pew.”

Even Seungmin had to admit that the quiet sound gave him chills. He yanked his hand free of Jisung’s grip. “It smells like it’s about to rain,” he warned. He didn’t even need to look up at the graying sky. “It’s going to be a big one but we should be in that town by then. Under shelter.” The three of them turned their heads as the eighteen-wheeler rumbled up the road towards them. Loud and big and slow like a moving castle. “Tell Hyunjin to be careful on the curves when the rain starts. We no longer have that van to tow it out of the mud.” He swung his leg over the Harley’s bulky frame and got comfortable on the seat. Jaehyuk eagerly climbed on behind him, one arm wrapped tight around his brother’s waist. Seungmin looked up at Jisung, “And tell Chan not to turn into a whiny bitch when he can’t spot our taillights.”

Jisung opened his mouth to complain.

Seungmin cranked up the Harley to drown him out.

⛺

Seungmin’s dad taught him how to shoot when he was twelve. Before they moved to the city.

Took him out back with a tiny little pistol and made him shoot cans off the tree stumps until he had perfect accuracy. Until the gun no longer jumped out of his hand after each shot. And then he made Seungmin shoot from farther and farther away. Until he was at the very edge of their property. Until he could hit each can from such a ridiculous distance. Then he gave Seungmin bigger and bigger guns until he got used to the punch of the recoil in his chest. Jaehyuk, not even a whole year younger, insisted that he be taught how to shoot as well. It looked like fun, he said, and this shouldn’t be any different from all of the other stuff he and his brother did together. So their dad obliged. Insisted that they stick together. Learn together. Fail together. Succeed together. And, over the years, Jaehyuk became just as good at it as Seungmin, but it turned out that he preferred the silence of bow and arrows. The smooth glide of knives. The thrill of sneaking up on his prey rather than shooting his prey from afar.

Not once did Seungmin question why their dad taught his boys such skills when they didn’t even go out hunting but, one night, around Seungmin’s seventeenth birthday their dad drank hard and let slip the one and only clue he ever gave them: “Your mama’s being forced to work on something secret at that government facility. She won’t tell me anything about it when she’s awake but she talks in her sleep. Something’s coming.”

_Something’s coming._

And Seungmin can’t help but wonder if that ‘something’ was the hell they’ve been living in for the past five years. Had it been five years? Time was fucking relative. An illusion. He could be 20 or 26. Hell if he knew. Hell if he cared. Every day was the same. The same hunt for supplies. The same noises as Hyunjin dicked around with his stupid machines. The same food as Yongbok caught _yet another_ rabbit. Even waking up with Jaehyuk’s hands wrapped tight around his throat was beginning to become monotonous. 

Seungmin can’t help but wonder if this life was what their dad had been preparing them for. This boring, dirty fucking life. 

Well, it’s not like he’ll ever get the chance to fucking ask. He had to put his own dad in the ground the day all of this shit started.

Fuck. That thing hadn’t been his dad anyways.

“Something’s coming,” Jaehyuk shouted over the roar of the wind into Seungmin’s ear. Then he pointed.

The storm was creeping across the horizon on their left, all pitch-black clouds and white-hot lightning, but Jaehyuk pointed off to the right where a small group of zombies were running and screaming across the field towards them, attracted by the Harley’s big, noisy engine.

Seungmin didn’t need to be told twice. He brought the motorcycle to a stop at the side of the road.

“Better us than the truck,” Seungmin figured. Sure, all the nails and pikes of sharpened wood across the truck’s front bumper could skewer a zombie if Hyunjin were driving at battering ram speed but if he didn’t smash the brain, they’d just pry themselves off the pointy bits and crawl across the hood to the windshield. It had happened before. They’d lost one that day.

Seungmin wouldn’t let them lose another.

“Here,” Jaehyuk said. He handed Seungmin their dad’s old army knife with it’s cloth-wrapped handle and serrated blade. “No guns. There might be more of the ugly bastards out in those woods.”

“You scared of having company over,” Seungmin asked. He watched Jaehyuk hop off the bike and playfully swing around a baseball with surprisingly zero nails driven into it.

“Don’t we always treat our guests with the utmost respect?” He gave Seungmin a grin and a wink.

Seungmin reached for his utility belt and unhooked the handle of his hatchet. “Let’s show them some southern hospitality.” Knife in one hand, hatchet in the other, he followed Jaehyuk across the field towards the approaching zombies.

“Do you think they’d scream if we set them on fire,” Jaehyuk asked.

“You got a lighter and a can of hairspray?”

“Fresh out.”

They both looked back out across the field. At the crooked, ashen-faced monsters hop-skipping towards them on twisted ankles and broken legs. How could Jeongin look at these hideous fucking things with their bulging eyes and sloughed off skin and think that they were human? That they could be saved? That they were anything but monsters that deserved to get their heads hacked off? Seungmin didn’t see people. He just saw targets. 

He could smell them, even from this distance. Foul, rotting, spoiled-meat sacks of bloated flesh. His own shit would have smelled like flowers in comparison.

Jaehyuk looked at him with that wild, frantic electricity in his eyes. The same look that made everyone else walk away from him without turning their back to him. “I got the three on the right. You take the two on the left.”

“Hey,” Seungmin complained.

“Wanna race me to the fifth one, then?” He didn’t even wait for Seungmin to agree. He just took off running, baseball bat at the ready.

Seungmin ran after him, not wanting to miss out. 

Jaehyuk still had a significant head start, though. He fixed his grip on his bat like he was actually stepping up to home plate. Twisted his torso and delivered a right-to-left swing at the zombie’s cheek so potent that Seungmin could hear every bone in the zombie’s neck pop and snap and fucking crackle as its head twisted backwards like it was a goddamn owl. Jaehyuck reared back, swung again and the last bone in the zombie’s neck gave way and the whole head flew off. Jaehyuk kicked the corpse to knock it over out of his way.

One down.

Seungmin hopped sideways out of the way of the lunging, reaching, grasping zombie. It looked like it was wearing some kind of uniform and some type of backpack. A high school student, maybe? Well, class hadn’t been in session for years. Seungmin raised his hatchet over his head and brought it down on the back of the zombie’s skull. He kept the blade sharp so it split through the zombie’s cranium like a hot knife through butter, spilling foul liquid everywhere. Seungmin just barely turned his head away in time to keep the gunk off of his face. His first tug on the hatchet did not free it from the zombie’s split head. Shit shit shit.

Another zombie bodily collided with him.

Shit.

The things were heavier than they looked. More solid. Like a sack of fucking bricks that could walk. Seungmin saw a white flash of teeth out of the corner of his eye. He bucked backwards with all of his might and shoved the zombie away. Top-heavy, it fell onto its back in the grass, snarling and wheezing like it could still fucking breathe air. 

Seungmin propped his foot on the first zombie’s stiff back and used it as leverage to wrench his gore-covered hatchet free of the zombie’s busted skull. He would easily abandon any other weapon but he would not give up this hatchet. It was the only thing that got him through the day.

With nothing keeping it upright, the ex-student toppled forward in the grass.

Two down.

Seungmin didn’t even have the chance to turn around because that other zombie was back on its feet, tackling him again. 

That was another thing people got wrong about zombies. They weren’t fucking slow. They were no longer human. No longer felt pain so they were not limited by pain. They could move on broken legs. Twist around with shattered rib cages. Pick themselves up off the ground with snapped spines. They moved like fucking puppets on strings, their bodies being yanked around by primal instinct.

Seungmin swung his dad’s knife behind him, felt it connect with the zombie’s chest. It wouldn’t be enough to get the goddamn thing to let go of him. Seungmin twisted the knife, pulled hard. Put enough strength behind it to drag the zombie from behind him and send it toppling to the grass again. Thick, foul-smelling gunk clung to the serrated edge of the knife as he stared down at the rotten shell of what looked like a police officer, all done up in riot gear. 

“Aim for the fucking neck,” Jaehyuk shouted, as if he needed to remind him.

“I fucking know,” Seungmin shouted back. 

Already, the officer was getting back on its feet. It didn’t need to roll over and use its arms for support. It just planted its feet on the ground and used the wicked, inhuman strength of its own calf muscles to haul its entire body off of the ground in one snake-like movement. 

Seungmin swung his dad’s knife first and split open a wide gash across the officer’s face. “Fuck cops,” he screamed. Then he swung his hatchet and felt the delicious jolt of impact as the blade cracked into the zombie’s temple. Just as quickly as it stood up, it went down again. Seungmin watched in fascination as the thing writhed and moaned and squirmed like it was about to get right the fuck back up again.

Seungmin raised his booted foot. Brought it straight on top of the fallen zombie. Its shockingly soft face fell apart. Its head liquified. He gave it one more fucking stomp and watched the brain turn to grayish slush beneath his heel.

Three down.

“Any more coming,” Jaehyuk hollered. He was running across the field, whooping excitedly like he’d gotten to the bonus level of a video game, the other two zombies right on his ass.

Seungmin checked the field. It was tough trying to get his eyes to focus, to look for movement when the whole world seemed to be spinning, but he ignored the churning black clouds overhead, he ignored the wave-like movements of the forest. All of their noise hadn’t brought anything else out of the woods.

“We’re good,” he yelled back.

“Aww man,” Jaehyuk shouted, sounding truly let down. He gripped his baseball bat, spun around with it. It was like watching a wrestler do a clothesline. The zombie’s body twisted like a pinwheel in the air before landing on the ground in an upside-down heap. 

Jaehyuk didn’t get a chance to celebrate. The second zombie was on him. Clawing at his clothes. Yanking on his hair.

Jaehyuk let out an uncharacteristic scream of terror and dropped his baseball bat out of shock.

Seungmin felt his blood go cold. 

He didn’t even remember moving. Running. Lifting his hatchet. But when he blinked, he’d crossed the grassy field and was standing right behind the zombie, slicing his hatchet through the zombie’s neck.

The fucker was huge, though. Thick. The hatchet didn’t cut clean through.

“Seungmin,” Jaehyuk shouted, still struggling to free himself from the zombie’s vice-tight hold.

“I’m not going to let it hurt you,” Seungmin swore. He put the handle of the combat knife between his teeth just so that he could get both hands on the hatchet. It took all of his strength. It took some back-and-forth back-and-forth sawing motions, but after a terrifying six or seven seconds, he worked the blade of the hatchet the rest of the way through the big zombie’s neck.

It’s head hit the ground with a moist plop but its arms still gripped Jaehyuk’s body.

Seungmin walked around it, raised his hatchet, brought it down through one of the zombie’s arms. The cut was clean. The arm fell off in a shower of black gunk. Jaehyuk snapped his mouth shut to keep the shit off of his tongue.

Seungmin pried the zombie’s other fist out of the front of Jaehyuk’s shirt and then kicked the corpse to the ground.

Four down.

Jaehyuk sucked in a deep breath. He looked at Seungmin first with a relieved smile and then with a terrified frown. He stooped down to pick up his bat. “Duck,” he screamed. He was already swinging.

Seungmin threw himself to the grass just in time. Jaehyuk’s bat cut through the air where his head had been a mere breath before and the silver metal connected with the side of the fifth zombie’s head so perfectly, so cleanly, that it snapped free of the zombie’s body with that one hit and sailed into the air like a goddamn baseball. 

Five down.

Seungmin checked the field around them. There weren’t any others coming. That was all of them.

Still in a bit of an adrenaline-fueled daze, he turned around and walked back towards the side of the road, back towards the Harley.

Holy shit. 

His legs turned to jelly underneath him. Just like that. One step, they were solid on the ground. The next step, every muscle in his body gave way.

Holy fucking shit.

“Holy fucking shit,” Seungmin groaned, collapsing onto the gravel next to the road, exhausted. The combat knife slipped out of his mouth and went skidding across the gravel. The hatchet fell straight out of his numb hand. That was too damn close! He rolled over onto his back. “We almost didn’t fucking make it out of that.”

“But we did,” Jaehyuk told him. “Of course we fucking did.” He plopped himself down next to Seungmin, dropping his head on Seungmin’s heaving stomach. 

“Get off,” Seungmin warned. “I’m covered in zombie bullshit.”

“Not like I’m gonna eat it.”

“And if you did?”

“You’d chop my head off before I turned into one of those goddamn things.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“Really?” Jaehyuk lifted his head. His expression was twisted up with confusion and maybe a little anger. “You’d be a little bitch about it? Get someone else to hack my head off?”

Seungmin poked him in the forehead. “No. I’d let you bite me. I’d turn into one of those things too. We’d go through that shit together.”

Jaehyuk smiled like that idea pleased him. He settled his head back on Seungmin’s stomach.

Lightning arced across the sky. Seungmin swore he could hear it buzz in his ears. Feel it zip across his skin. Thunder rumbled above them. Heavy. Low. Close. The racing wind whistled through the trees and the knee-high grass. Rain started to fall. A mist. Gentle and cold.

It felt like being washed clean.

“Seungmin,” Jaehyuk said in a low voice.

“Yeah?” Seungmin looked down at him and met those big brown eyes that no one else could look into for long. The rest of the guys all saw a bottomless pit. Seungmin saw stars. “What’s that look for?”

“You know I’d do anything to protect you, right?”

Seungmin reached over and patted him on the head. Like a fluffy-haired dog. “Of course.”

Jaehyuk didn’t blink. “I mean… I would do anything.” A long, stretched out silence. Jaehyuk held Seungmin’s gaze. “Anything.”

There was a thinly veiled threat there but Seungmin couldn’t tell exactly what it meant. Exactly what _anything_ implied. Instead, he said, “Let’s get back on the bike. We have to stay ahead of the truck.”

⛺

The suburb was like some modern ruin. Some hollowed-out sliver of human civilization. A lost memory. A wrecked nest.

When the other two had come through last night, they hadn’t gone very far, fearful of being ambushed or cut off. But there was next to nothing to be afraid of.

They parked at an old, decrepit, vine-covered gas station and broke into groups to scout and gather resources.

Most of the houses had been burned to rubble. Probably from back when this shit all started, when it was rumored the government was bombing its own citizens in an attempt to stop the spread of infection.

Maybe it was true. None of the craters in the earth looked naturally formed.

Whatever had happened back then, though, nature didn’t care. She had grown back lush and full and verdant. Even with the wicked chill in the air, there were flowers blooming. Pink and purple and yellow and blue. And red. So much red. Everything was almost unnaturally vibrant. Painfully oversaturated. Like nature was making up for lost time. 

There wasn’t much of mankind left.

Any buildings that were still standing after the bombs fell had been picked clean. Emptied. Every siding or sign or front door marked off by X’s and SORRY’s dribbled on in black or red spray paint. The work of other survivors who had come through and salvaged what they needed. At least they seemed polite.

Chan had never thought of leaving messages for other survivors behind. He talked to Minho about starting to.

As far as materials went, it was a bust.

Most of the cars abandoned in the roads and driveways were missing tires, headlights, radios, grilles, doors, windshields, seats, even whole engines. But Hyunjin took his time sifting through each one regardless.

Jeongin scrambled to find any kind of medical supplies but only found expired vitamins, smashed boxes of weak aspirin, tampons and boxes and boxes of sanitation pads, a badly damaged package of splints. He loaded it all into the back of the truck anyway.

Changbin, Minho and Jisung still went and investigated all of the standing buildings, just in case, just to be sure, but whatever was left had been scorched black. Burned. Made useless. Either by the bombs or greedy survivors.

Even the gas station had been drained of fuel. All of the underground tanks emptied. Propane tanks spent. Everything marked with sprayed-on X’s. There wasn’t a river nearby so Yongbok doubled down on water rations and then took Chan out into the woods to try and find another deer. He was determined to give them venison this week.

Seungmin and Jaehyuk were on zombie watch. They patrolled the cracked roads and silent neighborhood, holding their hands over their faces to shield their eyes from the falling, frozen rain. Seungmin saw remnants of survivor encampments. Tents. Garbage cans to contain fires. Old, rotted couches. Fences made of corrugated metal. It was difficult to tell if survivors had been here two weeks ago or two years ago. The lifelessness of it all made some cavity in his chest ache. Like his heart was in pain or something. Sometimes he forgot that there were _other people_ out in this madness alongside them.

Jaehyuk found enough decomposing zombie bodies in the tall grass at the edge of the small suburb to make the assumption that some other group of survivors had already come through here and wiped shit clean. Like a public service.

“They took all of the fun out of it,” was his conclusion. 

They could see the silhouette of skyscrapers in the distance but the towering rectangles of metal and glass were pitch-black beneath the storm clouds. No electricity. 

They’d be better off steering clear.

The two brothers retraced their steps back to the gas station just in time. The mist-like drizzle from the sky broke apart and then the rain _really_ fell. A fucking downpour that put such a chill in the air that Seungmin’s teeth chattered even though he was dry.

The gas station was small but secure. The windows were boarded-up and, miraculously, the doors still locked. But Chan didn’t like sleeping indoors. The walls were safe but they were also prison bars if zombies ever got in. So they set up their tents outdoors, as usual. Beneath the metal roof above the gas pumps. At least outside, beneath the sky, they could always see what was coming for them.

“We need to send someone up the road towards the city with the Harley,” Chan suggested as Yongbok dolled out ‘dinner.’ Little more than sliced-up tidbits of beef jerky and brick-hard slices of bread.

“I’ll go,” Jisung said quickly. “I’ll go look.” 

“What for,” Minho asked. “There can’t be anything of use out that way.”

Chan said, “We never know until we try.”

“The cities got cleaned out first,” Yongbok reminded him. “When people were first quarantining in their homes during those initial months… It was difficult to get deliveries in with the roads clogged with abandoned cars and zombies on the loose. Grocery stores in the city emptied fast.”

“And apartment buildings can still be hot beds for zombies,” Jeongin pointed out. “Everyone living on top of each other is exactly why this shit spread so fast.”

Jisung shivered like the chill had reached his bones. “So is that a no?”

“It’s safer in the country where the population is… _was_ lower,” Changbin concluded.

Chan realized he was losing control of the discussion. “But this is the first big city we’ve come across in weeks. We can’t just drive by any potential resources!”

They should, Seungmin thought. Cities were hard to navigate. All of the tight streets and abandoned cars would be impossible to get the eighteen-wheeler through. They could probably get the Harley further but being on foot would give them the most mobility. Which worked fine out in the fields and hills where it was easy to spot zombies coming. But city streets offered numerous places for zombies to hide. It was easy to forget that out here, when they hadn’t seen another living soul in over a month, but cities were the center of civilization. They got hit the hardest by the pandemic. Even before shit really hit the fan, zombies were almost casually walking the streets, attacking people who were under the incorrect assumption that being outside was safe just because the corner store was open. There was no way a singular crew of survivors could mow down the entire population of a city. Thousands. Perhaps even hundreds of thousands of zombies could be lurking in that maze of death and rose-colored memories. 

“If anything, we should circumnavigate the city. Keep hitting up these kinds of suburbs,” Jeongin suggested.

“They’ve probably been picked clean. Just like this one,” grunted Hyunjin. His hair was just short of his hips now, tied back in a long braid. He’d never cut it, he said. He was using it as a way to mark the passage of time. As a way to remind himself that he was still living. Still growing. Still breathing. “We should stick to open roads. The countryside. Find tiny little ain’t shit towns out in the middle of nowhere that no one else would have fucking driven to.”

A sharp rumble of thunder split the discussion in half and no one spoke until Chan cleared his throat and said, “What about you two? Neither of you have said anything.”

Jaehyuk and Seungmin shared a look. 

“I don’t care where we go,” said Seungmin. 

“Just point us at whatever needs killing,” added Jaehyuk.

Another long silence. Except, this time, everyone was noticeably more uncomfortable.

The wind picked up and it made such a creepy, mournful, howling noise that everyone turned their heads to listen. It was like something large was in the sky above the clouds, crying and crying. A bird crying the saddest, blue song.

“We’re sitting ducks out here,” Jeongin said. “We should have stayed where we had a fence.”

“We can make a fence,” Changbin cut in. “We’ve got all the wood and wire we need in the back of the truck.”

“And maybe that should have been the first thing we put up,” Jeongin countered. “Instead of getting comfortable and eating.”

Jaehyuk piled his meager beef jerky bits on top of his stale bread and chomped it down in heavy, noisy bites. Seungmin, in stark contrast, tried to make every bite last by holding it in his mouth for minutes before chewing and swallowing. It was shit like this that solidified exactly why the Kim brothers hated participating in these weird ‘family’ dinners, Chan called them. 

The nine of them weren’t family. Only Seungmin and Jaehyuk were.

“I’m tired of moving around,” Jeongin complained. “I thought you said we were looking for a place to stay, Chan?”

“We are, goddammit. We at least have to find a place to _sustain_ us.” Their leader ran his hands through his hair before dragging his palms down his face in exasperation. “What else do you think we’ve been looking for all this time? We need a fresh water supply. Flat land to till and farm. Maybe even a big old house somewhere and everyone can have their own room. Their own space. Someplace with electricity. With plumbing.”

Oh. This shit again. This stupid, hopeful, kumbaya shit that would do no one any good believing in. “If you don’t mind,” Seungmin said, standing up, “we’re going to go live in the real world.”

Jaehyuk stood up with him. “God is dead.”

They both walked away.

No one was brave enough to stop them. 

⛺

Seungmin liked being on watch duty early in the evenings. Around 8pm or 9pm or so. It was the perfect time for him. He was too wired to sleep around that time of night so it was his duty to pick up patrol duties after Minho and then, around 10pm or so, hand off the duties to Hyunjin.

Jaehyuk usually took the hours right before dawn. 5am or 6am. Picking up after Changbin. Even before the world went to shit, Jaehyuk had been an early riser. Sometimes getting up earlier than their father, which was quite the feat because the man had been functioning on military time for four decades, even without troops to terrify out of their bunks in the barracks every day.

In all honesty, it was probably the one time on any given day where they were apart from each other, one asleep and the other awake.

It was probably also the one time Seungmin could fucking let his guard down.

But he wasn’t so relaxed that he couldn’t tune out the rain and hear footsteps crunching on the wet gravel behind him. His hand went to his hatchet and he whirled around, ready to swing.

Lightning flashed just in time. Turning night into day for a blink and a half. Revealing Jisung’s surprised face and small hands raised high in surrender. “It’s just me.”

Seungmin lowered his hatchet. “You know better than to approach me from behind.” He’d have put the hatchet through Jisung’s neck if that lightning had taken even a second longer to brighten the sky.

“Sorry,” Jisung said. “I just wanted to talk.”

“About what,” huffed Seungmin. He turned back around and kept his eyes on the stretch of road in front of the convenience store. If he had street lamps to illuminate the black of the night, he’d be set, but with no power out here, he had to rely on the sporadic bursts of lightning to show him the landscape and anything could creep up on them in the deadly seconds of darkness between flashes.

“You two--” Jisung cleared his throat and tried again. “You can’t really believe that there’s no hope.”

Seungmin rolled his eyes. Jisung. Chan. Jeongin. They were turning into raving lunatics. About as bad as a fucking cult.

Jisung kept on. “You can’t really believe that we’ll be fighting zombies for the rest of our lives, can you?”

“What if I do,” Seungmin shot back. He’d been in Seoul on day one. He’d witnessed the panic in the streets. Saw the fires start. Watched the helicopters zoom through the air. Watched the tanks rumble down the block. He’d also had to put a meat cleaver through their dad’s neck and watch his brother take a golf club to their mother. After spending a nightmare-inducing week locked--trapped--in their apartment, Seungmin had made the decision to get them out. God. He’d almost forgotten those first few weeks. He and his brother had been out there cleaving off zombie heads in the street and looting movie theaters and fast food restaurants for food. They had tried sticking with other groups of survivors, but even as the world burned, people were still trying to scam others out of their money, trick whole groups into sick suicide cults. The two brothers remembered what their dad said. To stay together. Fail together. Succeed together. They needed no one else. So they left the city on their own, barely getting out by the skin of their teeth as fires raged and the army shot pedestrians and zombies alike. To this day, Seungmin wondered if he and his brother would have made it through that first winter if Chan hadn’t found them. He said, “There’s nothing else but this.”

“Isn’t that sad,” Jisung asked. He touched Seungmin’s wrist. His fingers were cold from the rain. His hand felt so small and fragile as he groped up Seungmin’s arm before clamping down on his shoulder. “You have to have hope, Seungmin. You have to believe that something can come after this.”

Seungmin risked taking his attention off of his task to look over at Jisung and take in his wide, red-rimmed eyes. He was pretty, Seungmin allowed himself to think. Even when he was on the verge of tears. “It’s not sad,” he said coldly, hoping Jisung would turn and leave.

What they were doing was dangerous.

Not having hope. Not believing in some pretty, sparkly tomorrow. But touching. Being this close. Seungmin looked over Jisung’s shoulder at the tent he shared with his brother. It was far away. Almost entirely out of sight around the corner of the convenience store. 

Still, he pulled himself away from Jisung’s touch and turned his gaze back towards the road. “All I want to do is kill zombies, Jisung. We all have our tasks. That’s how we stay afloat. Yongbok cooks. Chan invents. Changbin builds. Hyunjin repairs. Minho marks the maps. Jeongin looks after our health. My brother and I keep you all safe. You--” _Do nothing_ , he almost said. “You gather water.”

“But that can change,” Jisung said. “We’re going to find a place to stay. We’re going to have a home!”

“And do what,” Seungmin snapped. “Grow old on a fucking farm? I’d rather be torn limb from limb by hungry zombies.” 

They were damn-near yelling at each other now. To get their points across. To be heard over the wind. Their voices would carry. Wake the others. Bring zombies to the area.

Seungmin forced himself to halfway whisper, “I’m fine being like this.”

Jisung crowded in on his personal space. He pressed his half-frozen, shaking fingers to both of Seungmin’s cheeks and forced him to turn his head and meet his eye. “Are you fine being alone?”

Preposterous. “I’m never alone--”

“Are you fine being alone,” Jisung repeated. His intentions were crystal clear. His desire was palpable and radiated off of him like a hot flame even beneath the cold rain. “Please, Seungmin.” And he wasn’t even specifying what he was begging for but Seungmin knew regardless. He knew and he resisted the urge to look away from such vulnerability.

He watched Jisung lean towards him. He let his eyelids flutter shut as Jisung’s mouth met his. 

It was sweet. God. It was so sweet. And so fucking warm. When was the last time Seungmin had felt something like this? When was the last time he’d lowered his defenses like this?

But he couldn’t have it. Not in the way he wanted. Not in the way he needed. He couldn’t fall for this. He would not let himself end up like Minho. Lonely and heartbroken, watching and listening to Chan get fucked by someone else. Shit was already messy and complicated in the group. Their years together had blurred the boundaries. They had all widely misinterpreted their proximity. These feelings weren’t real. They were a side effect. And Seungmin couldn’t let himself become addicted to the tingle in his chest and lose sight of what was important. If his head fogged up, he couldn’t protect them the way he needed to. If he got too close, he couldn’t swing the hatchet if he needed to.

Seungmin pulled away from the kiss. He put his hand on Jisung’s chest and shoved him away. “I think you’ve got the wrong idea, Jisung,” he said, turning away to face the road. “I think you misunderstand why I sneak into your tent some nights.”

And Jisung was so quiet after that for so long that Seungmin convinced himself that he’d run off. But when a solid minute passed and he turned around, Jisung was still standing next to him. His face a twisted-up mess of held-back screams. 

Seungmin looked away. To get rid of these things, you had to go clean through the neck. Remove the head in one swing. Or it would keep coming back. It would keep coming back. “I’m never going to love you back, Jisung.” But the burn in his chest told him how shit of a lie that was.

When the silence stretched thin that time, Seungmin did not have to turn his head to know that Jisung was gone.

⛺

Seungmin knew something was wrong the second he woke up. Mainly because Jaehyuk’s hand wasn’t squeezing the air out of his throat.

He opened his eyes. Took a moment to let his colorful dreams properly fade away. Blissfully, he soaked for a bit in the washed-out monotony of consciousness. God. It was still raining. It felt like storms lasted forever these days. Longer than they did when life was alright. Like the world was still trying to put out the flames of that shit awful day. Why did Seungmin feel so on edge? Even laying there, half-asleep, he didn’t feel peace. The cold wind sounded like monster screams as it whistled through the innards of the shabby buildings around them. He wanted to go back to sleep but he could feel alertness creep up the back of his neck. His body was trying to warn him but he wasn’t awake enough to decipher the alarm. Seungmin checked his watch. Shit. It wouldn’t be dawn for hours. And it wasn’t like there were many chores he could do out in the rain. Perhaps check the rain barrels? No. Chan would try to make a big show of being mad if Seungmin accidentally knocked another one over.

Would he just have to lay here? No. He could go for a walk around the complex. Relieve someone of their watch duty even though he’d already put in his shift for the night.

Seungmin relaxed. Or tried to.

He took a deep breath in--

Then he caught a whiff of blood and sat up straight. _That’s_ what his body had been trying to tell him. His hunter’s instinct had been trying to clue him in to a potential threat. He reached out a hand for his hatchet.

“It’s just me,” Jaehyuk said from the corner of the tent. His voice was smooth. Level.

Seungmin relaxed. He squinted into the dark a body’s length away.

Jaehyuk was… eating something? That’s what it sounded like.

“Did you steal some rations,” Seungmin asked. Yongbok would be pissed if he found out. Then, already aware of the answer, Seungmin added, “Did you at least bring me some?”

“Of course.” Jaehyuk leaned towards him and pressed something against his chest. A bag of chips, he guessed from the noise. Wait. It was unopened. An _entire_ bag of chips! A timely flash of lightning provided just enough clinical bluish light for Seungmin to catch sight of the logo on the bag. Original Lays. Amazing. Seungmin reached up and grabbed the bag only to recoil like he’d been electrically shocked. 

Jaehyuk’s hands were sticky and weirdly warm. The rain wasn’t the only thing he was wet with.

Seungmin found his flashlight. Turned it on. Aimed it at his brother. 

He wished he hadn’t.

Jaehyuk’s face was splattered red with streaks of blood. His clothes. His hands. Crimson was everywhere. And he looked so comfortable in it. Jaehyuk smiled at him and then calmly shoved his hand in his can of Pringles and then put the smashed-up bits of pizza-flavored chips into his mouth, chewing merrily.

Seungmin knew better than to ask if that was his brother’s own blood. In fact, now that he was fully awake, he knew exactly who that blood belonged to without needing to think it through. He would waste his breath asking _why_ so he answered his own question. “To protect me. Right?”

Jaehyuk crammed another handful of Pringles into his mouth and then spoke with his mouth full. “He’s no good for you.”

Still. Seungmin needed to go see. He needed to confirm. The dark, bloody image had already formed in his head but if he could just _look_ , he’d settle the tremors racing through his heart.

He tossed his blanket off, tightened the laces on his boots. Anger simmered underneath his skin. Or was that fright? He twisted his torso to point the flashlight at his brother. What good would punching him do? What good would come of hurting him? It was Seungmin’s fault for not teaching him well enough. It was Seungmin’s fault that he wasn’t as stern and strict as their army commander father. It was Seungmin’s fault for not saying ‘no’ enough. Seungmin reached out a hand and attempted to wipe blood off Jaehyuk’s cheek. All he did was smear it. Get it on his own hand. With a sigh, he stood up and unzipped the tent flap. Immediately, he was smacked in the face by the freezing wind and ice-cold rain. He was hardly six steps out of the tent and his thin sweater was soaked through. 

Seungmin walked across their encampment. 

He swept the flashlight back and forth in front of him to keep an eye out for threats. As closely as their crew huddled together at every other moment of their lives, setting up tents was the one time they deliberately separated themselves. They could at least give each other that little bit of nighttime privacy. The tent Jeongin and Minho and Hyunjin shared was on the far side of the convenience store.

Seungmin swallowed hard. The storm was so loud but perhaps it was his pulse racing in his ears that made everything sound so quiet. 

Really, the old convenience store wasn’t that large. They weren’t spaced that far apart. How had no one seen Jaehyuk come out here and do something like that?  
  


Seungmin heard a high-pitched gasp cut through the noise of the storm. Lusty. Debauched. It came from the direction of Changbin and Chan’s tent. Shit. Seungmin thought back on what time it was. It was Changbin’s hour to stand watch. Which meant he was in that tent fucking Chan.

God. If Changbin had only done his job, he would have seen! He would have hopefully stopped Jaehyuk.

_No girls_ , Seungmin remembered Chan saying all those years ago when they’d first turned down traveling with other survivors. _To keep us from making bad decisions._ Well, even a dumbass would have predicted that they’d all resort to fucking each other and making the same stupid, lust-driven, foolish choices.

Seungmin didn’t even care about them possibly being attacked by zombies in the night. He only cared about his blood-soaked brother and the mess he knew he’d find in Jisung’s tent.

Knowing there was no need to walk slowly and draw things out, he marched straight up to Jisung’s bright yellow tent. He unzipped the tent flap and smelled the gore before he even poked his head inside.

He aimed the flashlight. Hooked it left and then right. Saw Jisung’s torso, still tucked inside his sleeping bag, on one end of the tent, saw his head on the other.

Decapitated like a zombie.

Killed off like a monster.

Removed like a cancer.

At least he looked comfortable. At peace. Like he was still asleep. Eyes closed. Mouth almost curled up in the corners from the sweetness of an eternal dream.

Seungmin’s trained ears picked up on the noise even over the wind and the rain and the thunder. _Bang. Bang. Bang._ Rhythmic and steady. Metal against metal. He backed out of the tent and turned his head, followed the sound. There. On the far side of the building near the empty cage used for propane tanks. An old 60% OFF SALE sign was banging against the siding of the convenience store, dragged back and forth by the high wind.

Who knew how long it had been since it came loose.

If Changbin were doing his job, he’d have remedied the situation before it--

Now Seungmin could hear something else. Slow, dragging footsteps coming across the gravel of the parking lot. Seungmin pointed his flashlight to the other end of the property, out by the ruined gas pumps. 

His light reflected off their sinister, animal eyes.

Six of them. Seven, maybe. All huddled together. Moving as one writhing entity.

Zombies. Lured in by the noise. And now probably close enough to catch a whiff of fresh human flesh.

Seungmin unzipped Jisung’s tent flap the rest of the way. Let it hang open. Let the wind catch it and make it dance like a flapping flag. 

He stepped backwards, away from the approaching herd of zombies.

Seungmin unhooked the hatchet from his belt, held it tight in his hand. He backed even farther away from Jisung’s tent. If he was anyone else, he’d have raised the alarm by now. Do everyone a favor. But he was Seungmin. He’d use this golden opportunity those horny fuckers in the next tent over handed to him on a platter. Seungmin would wait a few precious, terrible seconds. Minutes, even. He’d wait and see if the zombies would pick up on Jisung’s scent. Then, he promised himself, he’d interrupt Chan and Changbin’s fucking, warn them of the attack. Alert everyone else. Maybe even blame this predicament on their insatiable libido. Instill some guilt. It would do the fuckers some good.

Maybe the zombies would get far enough into the camp to do some damage. Cause some chaos. Fuck shit up a bit.

They’d kill the zombies. Easily. Dispose of them like they always did.

Then maybe someone would notice they were missing one.

If anyone asked questions about Jisung, if anyone ended up seeing what happened to him in that tent, Seungmin could blame the zombies.

That’s what brothers did. Right?

They did anything to protect each other.

Anything.

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/TheSwingbyJHF)


End file.
